Santiago, Chile -- In a letter to Chileans written to be published after his death, Gen. Augusto Pinochet expressed regret for the bloody 1973 coup that put him in power but said it was necessary and he called the abuses under his regime inevitable.

His fate was public shunning and unimagined loneliness, he said in the message made public Sunday.

The former dictator, who died Dec. 10 of heart failure at age 91, said the military takeover avoided civil war and a Marxist dictatorship, and said his 1973-90 regime never had "an institutional plan" to abuse human rights.

"But it was necessary to act with maximum rigor to avoid a widening of the conflict," Pinochet wrote.

According to an official report, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons in the 17 years after Pinochet overthrew elected Marxist President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. Tens of thousands were illegally imprisoned, tortured and forced into exile after the coup, during which Allende committed suicide rather than surrender.

Pinochet's "message to all my compatriots to be published after my death" was made public by the Pinochet Foundation, a group of former aides and followers. Its president, Hernan Guiloff, said he received the text from Pinochet in 2004 and decided to make it public "on this day of peace" -- Christmas Eve.

In the six-page text, Pinochet wrote that "I have left no room for hatred in my heart."

"My destiny is a kind of banishment and loneliness that I would have never imagined, much less wanted," he added.

When he died, Pinochet was under indictment charging him with human rights abuses under his dictatorship and tax evasion in connection with secret multimillion-dollar foreign bank accounts.

Many people who endorsed the dictatorship's firm hand against communists and other leftists turned against Pinochet after hearing accusations that his family spirited $28 million into overseas accounts.

Pinochet noted the coup occurred in the context of the Cold War and said the military felt duty-bound to overthrow Allende, because the alternatives were "a civil war . . . the imposition of a so-called dictatorship of the proletariat, Marxist-Leninist, with total loss of political freedom and of the state of law."

"How I wish the Sept. 11, 1973, military action had not been necessary!" Pinochet wrote. "How I wish the Marxist-Leninist ideology had not entered our fatherland!"

He said the rights violations under his regime were inevitable because "as part of the characteristics of our rivals, it was necessary to implement certain procedures of military control, such as temporary imprisonment, authorized exile, executions by firing squad after military trials."

Indeed he did. And the media was thankless - of course. Allende was taking money from the KGB. Fact. Allende's party never had more than 34% of the vote. I hope to God we never have to make a choice like Pinochet did here in the US.

3
posted on 12/25/2006 9:33:25 PM PST
by RKV
( He who has the guns, makes the rules.)

I'm afraid we will have to choose between an Ignoramus and Incompetance. The media will play the part of the sporting liar. The winner will be he who can quote the most movie lines. Socialism will be blurred with antidisestablishmentarianism -- for what it's worth. This is a nation that prefers to sit in a squalid heap of a lounge chair and yuk it up. You can't trash religion and demand ethics. The all powerful god of Political Correctness gets the last say. Repeat after me, "President Hussein -- peace be upon him." Repeat after me, "I didn't sit in a Hanoi POW camp to be the Vice President!" You know what the choice is, and both Pinochet and Allende may be better than either of the yokels that come up for the next presidential election.

I hope to God we never have to make a choice like Pinochet did here in the US.

The second amendment to the Constitution say that "We The People" will make that choice. If Pinochet were a true totalitarian Chile would not be a democracy today. He saved Chile from Marxism! If he desired a military totalitarian dictatorship Chile would not be free today. He was a patriot and a Jaded Mandarin.

Good point, a lot of similarities can be found between Pinochet and Franco - they both saved their countries from totalitarian Communism, both were branded fascist dictators while doing that, and both set their countries' course toward constitutional democratic Republics.

Socialists in both countries (and elsewhere) are trying to rewrite history, as they usually do as it's their primary tool of propaganda and establishment of permanent socialist government.

There was an article recently about new government in Spain revising the 1930's and trying to change the names of streets and cultural or historical places... Fortunately, there's a backlash from significant portion of population that had family members killed and that remebers atrocities of the Communists before Spanish Civil War.

10
posted on 12/25/2006 11:55:18 PM PST
by CutePuppy
(If you don't ask the right questions you may not get the right answers)

All references to the letter - that I could find - are from AP’s story reprinted in various forms by different newspapers, like Washington Post etc. No link to the actual copy of the letter were provided, which is kind of interesting.

There are seven or eight books about Pinochet in my local library, but they are all written from a far left point of view by generally leftist writers (as can be seen from their bodies of work), so I doubt they could be of more interest from a different point of view (like saving Chile from Marxist despot Allende) or any more informative than, for example, reading Pinochet entry in Wikipedia or one of the encyclopedias.

If you find something different, I’d appreciate you posting it here so it could be referenced to others who may be interested.

14
posted on 11/26/2007 3:52:49 PM PST
by CutePuppy
(If you don't ask the right questions you may not get the right answers)

Two excellent books on Chile and Pinochet: "Out of the Ashes, Life, Death and Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile, 1833- 1988" by James Whelan and by the same author, "Allende: Death of a Marxist Dream".

Both books are known as the definitive works on Chile and Pinochet and are regarded as treasure. Out of the Ashes is out of print and a good copy can easily go for several hundred dollars.

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